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Top 10 Stress Management Techniques for Students

How to de-stress when you're feeling overwhelmed

No doubt about it, school is stressful. Academic deadlines, worrying about grades, pressure from parents and teachers, and juggling these challenges with your other responsibilities can leave you feeling frazzled and anxious.

The bad news is that all this stress can take a toll on your health, happiness, relationships, and grades. The good news is that learning to utilize some effective stress management strategies for students can help you tame these anxieties and keep your stress at manageable levels—even during midterms and finals.

At a Glance

Most students experience significant amounts of stress. This can significantly affect your academic performance, social life, and well-being. Learning stress management techniques can help you avoid negative effects in these areas. Strategies that can help include:

• Getting enough sleep
• Using guided imagery
• Exercise regularly
• Practicing deep breathing
• Using progressive muscle relaxation
• Listening to music
• Finding social support
• Eating a healthy diet
• Eliminating sources of stress
• Trying mindfulness

Let's take a closer look at why stress management is so important for students and what you can do to get a handle on the stress in your life.

Why Stress Management Is Important for Students

A study by the American Psychological Association (APA) found that teens report stress levels similar to adults. This means teens are experiencing significant levels of chronic stress and feel their stress levels generally exceed their ability to cope effectively .

Roughly 30% of the teens reported feeling overwhelmed, depressed, or sad because of their stress. According to one Pew Research Center report, 70% of teens view anxiety and depression as major problems for people their age.

Stress can also affect health-related behaviors. Stressed students are more likely to have problems with disrupted sleep, poor diet, and lack of exercise. This is understandable given that nearly half of APA survey respondents reported completing three hours of homework per night in addition to their full day of school work and extracurriculars.

Common Causes of Student Stress

Why are students today so stressed? According to the APA 2023 Stress in America report, Gen Z and younger millennials are overwhelmed by stress. The causes of this stress come from many areas. Financial worries , loneliness and isolation, climate concerns, political strife, the collective trauma linked to the pandemic, and other world events are all factors that play a part in the pressure on young people today. 

Another study found that much of high school students' stress originates from school and activities, and that this chronic stress can persist into college years and lead to academic disengagement and mental health problems.

Top Student Stressors

Common sources of student stress include:

• Extracurricular activities
• Social challenges
• Transitions (e.g., graduating, moving out , living independently)
• Relationships
• Pressure to succeed
• World events

Among High School Students

High school students face the intense competitiveness of taking challenging courses, amassing impressive extracurriculars, studying and acing college placement tests, and deciding on important and life-changing plans for their future. At the same time, they have to navigate the social challenges inherent to the high school experience.

Among College Students

This stress continues if students decide to attend college. Stress is an unavoidable part of life, but research has found that increased daily stressors put college-aged young adults at a higher risk for stress than other age groups.

Making new friends, handling a more challenging workload, feeling pressured to succeed, being without parental support, and navigating the stresses of more independent living are all added challenges that make this transition more difficult. Romantic relationships always add an extra layer of potential stress.

Students often recognize that they need to relieve stress . However, all the activities and responsibilities that fill a student’s schedule sometimes make it difficult to find the time to try new stress relievers to help dissipate that stress.

10 Stress Management Techniques for Students

Here you will learn 10 stress management techniques for students. These options are relatively easy, quick, and relevant to a student’s life and types of stress .

Get Enough Sleep

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Students, with their packed schedules, are notorious for missing sleep. Unfortunately, operating in a sleep-deprived state puts you at a distinct disadvantage. You’re less productive, may find it more difficult to learn, and may even be a hazard behind the wheel.

Research suggests that sleep deprivation and daytime sleepiness are also linked to impaired mood, higher risk for car accidents, lower grade point averages, worse learning, and a higher risk of academic failure.

Don't neglect your sleep schedule. Aim to get at least 8 hours a night and take power naps when needed.

Use Guided Imagery

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Guided imagery can also be a useful and effective tool to help stressed students cope with academic, social, and other stressors. Visualizations can help you calm down, detach from what’s stressing you, and reduce your body’s stress response.

You can use guided imagery to relax your body by sitting in a quiet, comfortable place, closing your eyes, and imagining a peaceful scene. Spend several minutes relaxing as you enjoy mentally basking in your restful image.

Consider trying a guided imagery app if you need extra help visualizing a scene and inducting a relaxation response. Research suggests that such tools might be an affordable and convenient way to reduce stress.

Exercise Regularly

One of the healthiest ways to blow off steam is to get regular exercise . Evidence indicates that students who participate in regular physical activity report lower levels of perceived stress.

While these students still grapple with the same social, academic, and life pressures as their less-active peers, these challenges feel less stressful and are easier to manage.

Finding time for exercise might be a challenge, but there are strategies that you can use to add more physical activity to your day. Some ideas that you might try include:

• Doing yoga in the morning
• Walking or biking to class
• Reviewing for tests with a friend while walking on a treadmill at the gym
• Taking an elective gym class focused on leisure sports or exercise
• Joining an intramural sport

Exercise can help buffer against the negative effects of student stress. Starting now and keeping a regular exercise practice throughout your lifetime can help you live longer and enjoy your life more.

Take Calming Breaths

When your body is experiencing a stress response, you’re often not thinking as clearly as you could be. You are also likely not breathing properly. You might be taking short, shallow breaths. When you breathe improperly, it upsets the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in your body.

Studies suggest this imbalance can contribute to various physical symptoms, including increased anxiety, fatigue, stress, emotional problems, and panic attacks.

A quick way to calm down is to practice breathing exercises . These can be done virtually anywhere to relieve stress in minutes.

Because they are fast-acting, breathing exercises are a great way to cope with moments of acute stress , such as right before an exam or presentation. But they can also help manage longer-lasting stress such as dealing with relationships, work, or financial problems.

Practice Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR)

Another great stress management technique for students that can be used during tests, before bed, or at other times when stress has you physically wound up is progressive muscle relaxation ( PMR ).

This technique involves tensing and relaxing all muscles until the body is completely relaxed. With practice, you can learn to release stress from your body in seconds. This can be particularly helpful for students because it can be adapted to help relaxation efforts before sleep for a deeper sleep.

Once a person learns how to use PMR effectively, it can be a quick and handy way to induce relaxation in any stressful situation, such as bouts of momentary panic before a speech or exam, dealing with a disagreement with your roommate, or preparing to discuss a problem with your academic advisor.

Listen to Music

As convenient stress reliever that has also shown many cognitive benefits, music can help relieve stress and calm you down or stimulate your mind depending on what you need in the moment.

Research has found that playing upbeat music can improve processing speed and memory. Stressed students may find that listening to relaxing music can help calm the body and mind. One study found that students who listened to the sounds of relaxing music were able to recover more quickly after a stressful situation.

Students can harness the benefits of music by playing classical music while studying, playing upbeat music to "wake up" mentally, or relaxing with the help of their favorite slow melodies.

Build Your Support Network

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Having emotional support can help create a protective buffer against stress. Unfortunately,  interpersonal relationships can also sometimes be a source of anxiety for students. Changes in friendships, romantic breakups, and life transitions such as moving away for college can create significant upheaval and stress for students.

One way to combat feelings of loneliness and make sure that you have people to lean on in times of need is to expand your support network and nurture your relationships.

Look for opportunities to meet new people, whether it involves joining study groups or participating in other academic, social, and leisure activities.

Remember that different types of relationships offer differing types of support . Your relationships with teachers, counselors, and mentors can be a great source of information and resources that may help you academically. Relationships with friends can provide emotional and practical support.

Widening your social circle can combat student stress on various fronts and ensure you have what you need to succeed.

Eat a Healthy Diet

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You may not realize it, but your diet can either boost your brainpower or sap you of mental energy. It can also make you more reactive to the stress in your life. As a result, you might find yourself turning to high-sugar, high-fat snacks to provide a temporary sense of relief.

A healthy diet can help combat stress in several ways. Improving your diet can keep you from experiencing diet-related mood swings, light-headedness, and more.

Unfortunately, students are often prone to poor dietary habits. Feelings of stress can make it harder to stick to a consistently healthy diet, but other concerns such as finances, access to cooking facilities, and time to prepare healthy meals can make it more challenging for students.

Some tactics that can help students make healthy choices include:

• Eating regularly
• Carrying a water bottle to class
• Keeping healthy snacks such as fruits and nuts handy
• Limiting caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol intake

Find Ways to Minimize Stress

One way to improve your ability to manage student stress is to look for ways you cut stress out of your life altogether. Evaluate the things that are bringing stress or anxiety into your life. Are they necessary? Are they providing more benefits than the toll they take on your mental health? If the answer is no, sometimes the best option is just to ditch them altogether.

This might mean cutting some extracurricular activities out of your schedule. It might mean limiting your use of social media. Or it might mean learning to say no to requests for your time, energy, and resources. 

While it might be challenging at first, learning how to prioritize yourself and your mental well-being is an important step toward reducing your stress.

Try Mindfulness

When you find yourself dealing with stress—whether it's due to academics, relationships, financial pressures, or social challenges—becoming more aware of how you feel in the moment may help you respond more effectively.

Mindfulness involves becoming more aware of the present moment. Rather than judging, reacting, or avoiding problems, the goal is to focus on the present, become more aware of how you are feeling, observe your reactions, and accept these feelings without passing judgment on them.

Research suggests that mindfulness-based stress management practices can be a useful tool for reducing student stress. Such strategies may also help reduce feelings of anxiety and depression.

It is important to remember that stress isn't the same for everyone. Figuring out what works for you may take some trial and error. A good start is to ensure that you are taking care of yourself physically and emotionally and to experiment with different stress relief strategies to figure out what works best to help you feel less stressed.

If stress and anxiety are causing distress or making it difficult to function in your daily life, it is important to seek help. Many schools offer resources that can help, including face-to-face and online mental health services. You might start by talking to your school counselor or student advisor about the stress you are coping with. You can also talk to a parent, another trusted adult, or your doctor.

If you or a loved one are struggling with anxiety, contact the  Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline  at 1-800-662-4357 for information on support and treatment facilities in your area.

For more mental health resources, see our  National Helpline Database .

American Psychological Association. Stress in America: Are Teens Adopting Adults' Stress Habits?

Pew Research Center. Most U.S. teens see anxiety and depression as a major problem among their peers .

American Psychological Association. Stress in America 2023 .

Leonard NR, Gwadz MV, Ritchie A, et al. A multi-method exploratory study of stress, coping, and substance use among high school youth in private schools . Front Psychol. 2015;6:1028. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01028

Acharya L, Jin L, Collins W. College life is stressful today - Emerging stressors and depressive symptoms in college students . J Am Coll Health . 2018;66(7):655-664. doi:10.1080/07448481.2018.1451869

Beiter R, Nash R, McCrady M, Rhoades D, Linscomb M, Clarahan M, Sammut S. The prevalence and correlates of depression, anxiety, and stress in a sample of college students . J Affect Disord . 2015;173:90-6. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2014.10.054

Hershner SD, Chervin RD. Causes and consequences of sleepiness among college students . Nat Sci Sleep . 2014;6:73-84. doi:10.2147/NSS.S62907

Gordon JS, Sbarra D, Armin J, Pace TWW, Gniady C, Barraza Y. Use of a guided imagery mobile app (See Me Serene) to reduce COVID-19-related stress: Pilot feasibility study . JMIR Form Res . 2021;5(10):e32353. doi:10.2196/32353

Cowley J, Kiely J, Collins D. Is there a link between self-perceived stress and physical activity levels in Scottish adolescents ? Int J Adolesc Med Health . 2017;31(1). doi:10.1515/ijamh-2016-0104

Harrison OK, Köchli L, Marino S, et al. Interoception of breathing and its relationship with anxiety .  Neuron . 2021;109(24):4080-4093.e8. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2021.09.045

Toussaint L, Nguyen QA, Roettger C, Dixon K, Offenbächer M, Kohls N, Hirsch J, Sirois F. Effectiveness of progressive muscle relaxation, deep breathing, and guided imagery in promoting psychological and physiological states of relaxation . Evid Based Complement Alternat Med . 2021;2021:5924040. doi:10.1155/2021/5924040.

Bottiroli S, Rosi A, Russo R, Vecchi T, Cavallini E. The cognitive effects of listening to background music on older adults: processing speed improves with upbeat music, while memory seems to benefit from both upbeat and downbeat music .  Front Aging Neurosci . 2014;6:284. doi:10.3389/fnagi.2014.00284

Thoma MV, La Marca R, Brönnimann R, Finkel L, Ehlert U, Nater UM.  The effect of music on the human stress response .  PLoS ONE . 2013;8(8):e70156. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0070156

American Psychological Association. Manage stress: Strengthen your support network .

Di Polito N, Stylianakis AA, Richardson R, Baker KD. Real-world intake of dietary sugars is associated with reduced cortisol reactivity following an acute physiological stressor .  Nutrients . 2023;15(1):209. doi:10.3390/nu15010209

Parsons D, Gardner P, Parry S, Smart S. Mindfulness-based approaches for managing stress, anxiety and depression for health students in tertiary education: A scoping review . Mindfulness (N Y) . 2022;13(1):1-16. doi:10.1007/s12671-021-01740-3

By Elizabeth Scott, PhD Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

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Stress-Free Essay Writing: 11 Techniques to Overcome Stress and Improve Your Writing

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Essay on Stress Management

500 words essay on stress management.

Stress is a very complex phenomenon that we can define in several ways. However, if you put them together, it is basically the wear and tear of daily life. Stress management refers to a wide spectrum of techniques and psychotherapies for controlling a person’s stress level, especially chronic stress . If there is effective stress management, we can help one another break the hold of stress on our lives. The essay on stress management will throw light on the very same thing.

Identifying the Source of Stress

The first step of stress management is identifying the source of stress in your life. It is not as easy as that but it is essential. The true source of stress may not always be evident as we tend to overlook our own stress-inducing thoughts and feelings.

For instance, you might constantly worry about meeting your deadline. But, in reality, maybe your procrastination is what leads to this stress than the actual deadline. In order to identify the source of stress, we must look closely within ourselves.

If you explain away stress as temporary, then it may be a problem. Like if you yourself don’t take a breather from time to time, what is the point? On the other hand, is stress an integral part of your work and you acknowledging it like that?

If you make it a part of your personality, like you label things as crazy or nervous energy, you need to look further. Most importantly, do you blame the stress on people around you or the events surrounding you?

It is essential to take responsibility for the role one plays in creating or maintaining stress. Your stress will remain outside your control if you do not do it.

Strategies for Stress Management

It is obvious that we cannot avoid all kinds of stress but there are many stressors in your life which you can definitely eliminate. It is important to learn how to say no and stick to them.  Try to avoid people who stress you out.

Further, if you cannot avoid a stressful situation, try altering it. Express your feelings don’t bottle them up and manage your time better. Moreover, you can also adapt to the stressor if you can’t change it.

Reframe problems and look at the big picture. Similarly, adjust your standards and focus on the positive side. Never try to control the uncontrollable. Most importantly, make time for having fun and relaxing.

Spend some time with nature, go for a walk or call a friend, whatever pleases you.  You can also try working out, listening to music and more. As long as it makes you happy, never give up.

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Conclusion of the Essay on Stress Management

All in all, we can control our stress levels with relaxation techniques that evoke the relaxation response of our body. It is the state of restfulness that is the opposite of the stress response. Thus, when you practice these techniques regularly, you can build your resilience and heal yourself.

FAQ of Essay on Stress Management

Question 1: What is the importance of stress management?

Answer 1: Stress management is very efficient as it helps in breaking the hold which stress has on our lives. Moreover, you can also become happy, healthy and more productive because of it. The ultimate goal should be to live a balanced life and have the resilience to hold up under pressure.

Question 2: Give some stress management techniques.

Answer 2: There are many stress management techniques through which one can reduce stress in their lives. One can change their situation or their reaction to it. We can try by altering the situation. If not, we can change our attitudes towards it. Remember, accept things that you cannot change.

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Essay on Overcome Stress

Students are often asked to write an essay on Overcome Stress in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Overcome Stress

Understanding stress.

Stress is like a heavy backpack. It can make you feel tired and upset. Everyone feels stress sometimes, like before a test or when arguing with a friend.

Signs of Stress

Stress can make your heart beat fast, give you a headache, or make it hard to sleep. It’s important to notice these signs so you can do something about it.

Beating Stress

To fight stress, take deep breaths, play, or talk to someone. Imagine putting your worries in a balloon and letting it go. Laughing with friends also helps lighten the load.

Staying Healthy

Eating good food, getting enough sleep, and running around keeps stress away. Think of your body like a car; it runs better with the right fuel and care.

250 Words Essay on Overcome Stress

Recognizing stress signs.

The first step to beating stress is to know when you have it. You might feel angry, sad, or get headaches. You could also feel your heart beat fast or have trouble sleeping. When you notice these signs, it’s a signal to take care of yourself.

Simple Ways to Beat Stress

One easy way to fight stress is to take deep breaths. Imagine filling up a balloon in your belly when you breathe in, and letting the air out slowly. Another way is to do things you enjoy, like playing a sport, reading, or drawing. These activities can take your mind off worries and make you feel happier.

Talking Helps

Talking to someone you trust, like a parent, teacher, or friend, can make a big difference. They can listen to your problems and help you find solutions. Sharing your feelings is like letting air out of that heavy backpack.

Eating good food, getting enough sleep, and running around outside also help your body handle stress better. When your body feels good, your mind often does too.

Remember, everyone faces stress, but you have the power to control it. By knowing the signs and having ways to deal with it, you can lighten the load and feel more at ease.

500 Words Essay on Overcome Stress

Before we can tackle stress, we need to know how to spot it. Think of your body like a car dashboard with warning lights. When you’re stressed, your body shows signs like a headache, stomachache, or feeling cranky. You might also have trouble sleeping or feel sad for no clear reason. These signs are your body’s way of telling you to slow down and take care of yourself.

Simple Ways to Relax

One of the easiest ways to fight stress is to relax. Imagine pressing a pause button on a video game. Relaxing is like pressing pause on the day’s worries. You can take deep breaths, listen to calm music, or find a quiet spot to sit for a few minutes. These simple actions can help your body feel more peaceful and less tense.

Time Management

Sometimes stress comes from feeling like there’s too much to do and not enough time. It’s like having a big pile of homework and not knowing where to start. Making a list of what you need to do and putting the most important tasks at the top can help. Try to do a little bit at a time and give yourself breaks. This method can make the pile seem less scary and more manageable.

Stay Active and Healthy

Being active is like giving your body a good stretch after sitting for too long. Exercise can help clear your mind and make you feel more energetic. It doesn’t have to be hard or boring. You can play a sport, dance to your favorite music, or even go for a walk. Eating healthy foods also gives your body the right fuel to deal with stress.

Good Sleep Matters

Overcoming stress is about finding ways to make your backpack of worries lighter. Remember to look for signs of stress, take time to relax, talk about your feelings, manage your time, stay active, and get plenty of sleep. By doing these things, you can feel happier and more ready to enjoy life’s adventures. Remember, everyone deals with stress, and it’s perfectly fine to ask for help when you need it.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Ways to Overcome Stress for Students: Strategies for Well-Being

How it works

“The term “Stress” refers to the psychological state which derives from the person’s appraisal of the success with which he or she can adjust to the demands of the social environment.” (Vattano, 1978). Stress is a common factor in the lives of every person, no matter of race or culture. Stress is your body’s way of responding to any kind of demand. It can be caused by both good and bad experiences. When people feel stressed by something going on around them, their bodies react by releasing chemicals into the blood.

Stress causes a surge of hormones in your body. “When your body detects stress, a small region in the base of the brain called the hypothalamus reacts by stimulating the body to produce hormones that include adrenaline and cortisol.” (BBC Science, 2013). Everyone needs a certain amount of stress or pressure to live well. It’s what gets you out of bed in the morning and motivates you throughout the day. However, stress becomes problematic when there’s too much or too little. Though stress is often perceived as bad, it can actually be good in some respects. The right kind of stress can sharpen the mind and reflexes. It might be able to help the body perform better or help you escape a dangerous situation. Stress is any situation that evokes negative thoughts and feelings in a person. Stressful events can be appraised by “Challenging” or “threatening” situations. (Lazarus, 1966).

When it comes to academics, there are many factors as to 17 factors of stress. (Anderson, E D. and Cole, Bettie S, 1988). “The new environment may bring challenges related to learning, concentration, developing interpersonal relationships, and decision-making regarding the choice of subjects and career. A new environment means new relationships, and it is obvious that one experiences stress as one has to readjust to their life. In the process of adjusting to different circumstances, stress may help or hinder depending on how one reacts to it.” (Puri, Kaur, Yadav, 2016). This paper will discuss how the term “stress” is different between students taking advanced placement compared to a student taking regular or honors classes. However, there is way more than class level that contributes to stress in students. The purpose of this paper is to explain why advanced placement classes bring more stress to students. “Stress is the most undermined syndrome in our society that is neglected since the element of mental health associated with it.” (Kalli, 2018) Excessive stress could lead to psychological problems such as depression and anxiety. This paper will discuss whether or not Advanced Placement classes affect the mental health of a student in high school or college. This topic has not been discussed prior to this paper. However, there are many sources based on the stress that affects students. I predict that many students will find that the stress they suffer will be due to the work they receive in Advanced Placement classes.

• 1 Literature Review
• 2 Participants
• 3 Materials
• 4 Procedure

Literature Review

Undergraduates (high school students) see college as stressful because it is a big change from high school. According to Bhujade (2017), “For others, separation from home is a source of stress. Although some source of stress is necessary for personal growth to occur, the amount of pressure to do well, whether the demands come from parents or the stress, can overwhelm a student and affect the ability to cope.” (p.1). The statement shows how not only does college differ from high school in a big way, but leaving home is a huge stress factor. Some of the salient problems specific to college students are the time to the psychological state, which derives from the person’s appraisal college students of 100 medical students, it was found 26% have inventory. The colleges should encourage a warm and effective learning environment for students. Support and mentoring are required so that stress can be identified early and dealt with appropriately. Singh (2016) agrees by saying, “Adolescents are more prone to stress; because they are undergoing a transformation in terms of physical, mental and social changes which make them over-conscious about themself.” (p.3). A cross-institutional study found stress at the top of health problems that worried students most, followed by body image, AIDS, physical fitness, and cancer.

Maajida, Vishnu, and Gayathri (2018) agree with Bhujade (2017) by stating, “For many young adults, school is the best time of life. These critical years can also be undermined by depression, anxiety, and stress.” (p.1). However, it states, “The major source of stress includes; change in sleeping habits, vacation, and breaks, change in eating habits, increased workload, and new responsibilities.” (Maajida et al. 2018) (p.2). The statement shows that not only does mental health affect stress, but responsibilities and new lifestyles with habitats. Elevated stress levels among students can result in decreased performance in academic accomplishments and can affect both the physical and mental health of students. Elevated stress levels among students can result in decreased performance in academic accomplishments and can affect both the physical and mental health of students. Therefore, studies on coping with stress will have a significant impact on higher education. The various methods to reduce stress often include time management, social support, positive reappraisal, and engagement in leisure. However, both Bhujade (2017) and Maajida et al. (2018) agree with the statement, “Higher education is a stressful period in students’ life which they need to cope with due to various reasons such as living away from their families, heavy syllabus, and inefficiency in higher education programs.” (p.2).

However, Thanh (2016) states, “They provide the opportunities to uncover the influence of Vietnamese culture on occupational stress experienced by women in the academic field, the opportunities to compare to the Vietnamese women’s experience and perception of occupational stress with that of their counterparts in other cultures.” (p.1). This emphasizes that Cultural relationships are considered as the stress experienced by Vietnamese academic women, as they impact work relationships. Occupational stress at work declines for Vietnamese academic women as they advance in age, experience, rank, and qualification. However, Amr, El Gilany, and El-Hawary (2008) refute this claim by stating, “The medical students of a particular institute in Egypt shows that there is no significant difference of perceived stress between the male and female students.” (p.6). Showing that gender has nothing to do with stress and that depression and mental health is a massive factors in academic stress. Stress becomes an integral part of human life. Anything that creates a challenge or a threat to our comfort is stress. All kind of stress is not considered to be bad because it helps people to perform well. In academics, stress is unavoidable among students, and it in?uences students’ performance in all academic activities. Academic stress plays a major role in determining the mental health of students. On the other hand, Amr et al. (2008) agree with Maajida et al. (2018) and Bhujade (2017) on how students feel stressed when they are arriving to college.

Every day, we are confronted with problems. When we are confronted with a problem, we must determine the seriousness of the problem and determine whether or not we have the resources necessary in order to cope with the problem. If we believe that the problem is serious, and we also believe that we do not have the resources necessary to cope with the problem, we will perceive ourselves as being under stress. When your child is overwhelmed or frustrated by homework, it makes it harder for him or her to complete assignments. This can cause a stressful cycle where homework piles up, and your child doesn’t have the time or energy to complete it all, leading to even more stress. According to Reddy, Reddy, Reddy (2014), school is one of the main sources of stress among adolescents. Such stress comes from too much homework, unsatisfactory academic performance, preparation for tests, lack of interest in a particular subject, and teacher’s punishment. Although attending college is generally viewed as a positive experience, it sometimes involves a stressful period of adaptation for students coming from high school. This does agree with what Bhujade (2017), especially when Reddy et al. (2014) state, “College students face a variety of challenges as they transition from high school to higher education. This transition signifies a crossroads between adolescence and adulthood, a period of passage between the old and the new, and between relationships of the past and relationships of the present.” (p.2). Furthermore, according to Reddy et al. (2014) results, it appears that most students suffer from personal and academic stress. Academics receive more “Yes” answers than “No” in categories such as Increased workload, Change of Major, a Lower grade than anticipated, etc. (chart on p.4-5). Murff (2005) agrees with Reddy et al. (2014) by stating, “Second, because of the pressure of studies, there is the strain placed on interpersonal relationships.” (p.1). This also makes Murff (2005) agree with Bhujade (2017) and Maajida et al. (2018) by also stating, “First, students have to make significant adjustments to college life…. Third, housing arrangements and changes in lifestyle contribute to the stress experienced by college students.” (p.1). Students in college experience stress related to academic requirements, support systems, and ineffective coping skills. Whether it’s advanced-level classes or the amount of studying required, a heavy workload can be a major source of stress for students. This is especially common for older high school students as they start making their post-secondary plans.

However, Madnani and Pradhan (2015) argue against this and say that parenting affects academic stress. By having a parent lay pressure on them to succeed, a child can feel less inspired and more threatened. The academic demands increase with every year of high school. Even if kids have made great strides in middle school, they know the work will get more challenging. They’ll be so paralyzed by fear of not doing well that they won’t actually learn and succeed like they otherwise would. Too much pressure to do well in school can cause kids to do unethical things. For instance, a child who has been told that they must get all A’s on their report card could feel pressured to cheat on an exam or assignment in order to fulfill that obligation. Studies have consistently documented that children and adolescents who are raised in families who practice the authoritative parenting style perform better in school compared to those who are raised in families in which other types of parenting styles are adopted. “Positive parenting practices may act as a resource to meet out academic stress of adolescents by developing self-efficacy, self-confidence, optimism, and hope among them.” (p.3). Developmental psychologists have long been interested in how behaviors of parents affect children. It is difficult to find which action of a parent produces any specific type of behavior in a child.

Anderson and Bettie (1988) agree with the factor of parental pressure stated by Madnani and Pradhan (2015). Parents give their children many expectations when it comes to their education. Wanting quality grades, superb test scores, and accomplishments can take a toll on a student’s health. Students deal with homework for mostly every class, projects every quarter of the semester, or have many quiz answers to study and remember. Parental expectations play a vital role in a child’s academic and future performance. Parents have expectations for their children’s accomplishments related to education that influence their children’s expectations and attainment, and early expectations of continuing the whole time the child’s school years. The students’ stress levels are even more when their parents want to push them even more. Mishra (2018) agrees by talking about how a child is very stressed because of his parent’s high increasing and decreasing academic performance. Expectations. They feel how they will face his parents if he does not perform up to the parent’s expectations. “The pressure of parents for expectations creates a high degree of anxiety in many students, especially in those who are unable to perform at a level that matches the potential they have shown in less stressful situations. Their expectations sometimes provoke stress in their children and influence their academic achievement.” (p.5).

However, Khan, Altaf, and Kausar (2013) state that “students reported their experience of high academic stress at predictable times in each semester which results from preparing and taking exams, class ranking competition, and mastering huge amount of syllabus in a comparatively very small amount of time.” (p.3). Moreover, stress in students will most likely increase at the end of the semester than at the beginning of the semester. This is due to the end-of-the-year projects and assignments that a student doesn’t enjoy due to having personal plans for their break. Also, this increases more in younger students because they have more years until they graduate, resulting in more work. Moreover, Ray, Halder, and Goswami (2012) agree with this by talking about how sources of academic stress may be life events or chronic strains related to programs and workloads. Moreover, Hj Ramli, Alavi, Mehrinezhad, and Ahmadi (2018) agree with both Ray et al. (2012) and Khan et al. (2013) that stress in education is affected by the workload and pressure from grades. Furthermore, Hj Ramli et al. (2018) give how to overcome this negative factor by stating, “Numerous approaches can be employed to overcome stress, such as self-regulation and mindful-based intervention programs.” (p.2).

Stankovska, Dimitrovski, Angelkoska, Ibraimi, Uka (2018) talk about how test anxiety affects stress in students’ mindsets. Uka et al. (2018) say, “Test anxiety is prevalent among the student population of higher education. Students who experience test anxiety tend to be easily distracted during a test, experience difficulty with simple instructions, and have trouble organizing or recalling relevant information. (p.2). Showing that anxiety from exams can make a student feel nervous or stressed due to worrying about their score. However, Bernstein and Chemaly (2017) disagree with the results of their research on how females have more stress than males in an educated environment. (p.7). On the contrary, the study only shows 89 males compared to 217 females. Method Research Method

“Research methods should perhaps be categorized by data collection technique, as it makes more sense than if research methods are labeled as qualitative or quantitative.” (Chu and Ke, 2017). For this research study, I will be employing the mixed research method. “The use of mixed methods is most suitable when a quantitative or qualitative approach, by itself, is inadequate to develop multiple perspectives and a complete understanding about a research problem or question.” (Klassen, Creswell, Plano, Smith, Meissner, 2012). Utilizing the mixed method allows the researchers to examine the causes that participants impute to their actions and behavior with others.

“The research method associated with both quantitative and qualitative research have their own strengths and weaknesses so that combing them allows the researcher to offset their weaknesses to draw on the strengths of both.” (Bryman, 2016).

Participants

A total of thirty-four high school students participated in this questionnaire in order to gather the necessary information. The participants that partook in and completed the survey were anonymous. The survey was sent to Facebook through a link from the webpage where the survey was created. All the participants in the inquiry were 15 or older.

For my research, I used a computer to create my survey. Also, I used Survey Monkey to send out my surveys to the participants via a web link. Moreover, for this study, I used the ERIC database, EBSCOhost database, and google for my background information. The digital copy of the survey included one page titled “Stress in AP and Honors classes,” followed by 10 open closed-ended, and open-ended questions. I added mostly closed-ended questions because I wanted the participants to answer the questionnaire without asking themselves whether or not their answers would work with the survey.

The process of this research and survey was lengthy but not challenging. At the beginning of the class, AP Research, I had to focus on getting a research question. My first question was whether or not computer science was beneficial to students. However, the topic was too simple, and many people have discussed it, so I decided to change it to a comparative study on the stress on students in AP classes compared to other classes. I chose this topic because I have seen many students become stressed or have a hard time with their AP classes, and I wondered what other students around the nation feel about this. Then, I look for sources for my topic on Ebscohost, Eric, and Google. After, I went onto Facebook to join groups on the topic and send my survey. Furthermore, I created a ten-questioned survey with useful questions that would supply me with the information and results needed. The first 3 questions were to know about the participant, while the rest of the questions were on the topic and how the applicant dealt with stress. Once the survey was finished, I sent a link to the groups I joined and waited for the results. Finally, once the results came in, I added the information to my study.

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How Can College Students Cope With Stress Essay

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Introduction

College students are very often not as prepared as they thought for the unique stresses of being a college student. College classes are harder to pass, require much more homework, feature more difficult exams, and cost a lot of money if you fail. Getting through college determines the success of the rest of your life at the same time that you want more than anything to get on with your life. With all of these ideas swirling around in your head, it is very easy to become overwhelmed with stress. There is a simple way to reduce your stress levels, though, if you are willing to put in a little effort.

First, buy a planner. These folders come in a wide variety of sizes and styles that give you day to day and month to month pages on which you can write down when assignments are due, dates of important exams, and other class events. Just writing them down in the planner means that you don’t have to try to keep track of them in your head, which reduces the stress of trying to remember everything. If you want to get relaxed, schedule in time to work on important papers in the weeks leading up to the due date so that it doesn’t come up at the last minute.

It’s OK to reschedule if your friends are throwing a killer party that night, but the important thing is that you’ve reminded yourself before it’s last-minute so you don’t have to panic to finish on time.

Next, keep your area clean. If your room is full of clutter all the time, your brain has a hard time relaxing and concentrating on the important stuff. It’s constantly distracted by the clutter and this makes it difficult to stretch out your thoughts and look at them more objectively. Clean work areas mean you can get straight to work when you only have a limited amount of time to complete an assignment and you can find your keyboard when a paper needs to be written. If it’s a large project you’re working on, having a clean room means you can spread it out in your available space and feel much more productive at the end of an hour. A few seconds before you leave the room and a few minutes either in the morning or at night straightening up your mess will help you sleep better and focus more without really seeming to take anything out of your day.

Finally, give yourself time each day to relax and do something that makes you smile. Some people find spending ten minutes in meditation in the morning and at night is helpful. This involves sitting somewhere quiet and comfortable and concentrating on the breath, on getting oxygen to every part of the body. The advantage of this technique is that it can be used anytime stress levels threaten, such as when sitting down to class and discovering there is a pop quiz on the chapter you skipped. Other people find fun in exercise, either by going to the gym to work out or out to the Frisbee golf course to try their luck at hitting a tree. Exercise releases a chemical agent into the brain that contributes to a greater sense of well-being, which itself is an effective agent against stress.

Many college students feel overwhelmed by stress as they attempt to cope with the pressures of living an adult lifestyle while not yet ready to give up childhood completely. The pressure to succeed and get good grades is not helped by the greater demands of the college setting either. However, if you follow these three simple steps, getting mentally organized, getting physically organized, and remembering to have fun, you will be ahead of the curve in knowing how to handle those tough moments in life when things seem to be happening faster than you can predict.

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• ACADEMIC ADVICE

The Effects of Stress on College Students & Ways to Overcome it

• June 1, 2022

Table of Contents

What is academic stress, physical effects of stress, psychological effects of stress, relationships or lack of friends, homesickness, tips to overcome stress during college, avoid procrastinating, on-campus mental health services, off-campus centers and hotlines.

We have all heard at least one person being nostalgic about the great time they had in college. And it’s true. Being on your own for the first time ever, pursuing a degree, meeting new people, and living in a new city can give you a new purpose and perspective in life. But we also have to admit that college can be stressful too. While all these great new opportunities might be a dream come true for some, they can be overwhelming for many others. And this overwhelming feeling might go away when you get settled in after a week or might stick around in the form of academic stress.

To understand academic stress, we first need to understand what the term “stress” really means. In simple terms, stress refers to a distressed state of mind caused by various factors. Mental stress manifests differently based on the person or level of stress.

Now that we have clarified what “stress” is, it will be pretty easy to understand what academic stress is. We use the term “academic stress” to refer to the kind of psychological distress caused by factors pertaining to one’s academic performance. The stressors that cause academic stress vary depending on the student, but they all have in common the fear of failure in some way or another.

How Stress Affects College Students & Their Mental Health

While virtually everyone has experienced stress at some point in their lives, its intensity and the way we deal with it differs with every person. For some people, it’s just jitters before a presentation, and that’s it, but for others who don’t know how to deal with or manage it, stress can be a serious problem in their everyday lives. High levels of stress concerning academic performance have a negative impact on one’s mental and physical health. Ironically, academic stress also negatively affects a student’s academic performance.

Though we have stated that stress is related to the mind, you may easily detect someone with higher stress levels due to the physical manifestations of academic stress. While physically, the signs of stress may differ from person to person, there are some more prevalent physical symptoms among students:

Muscle pain & headache

Many of us usually attribute headaches and muscle pain to factors such as dehydration, physical activity, etc. The truth is that muscle pain and headaches are also widespread symptoms of academic stress. When you are stressed, muscles in your body tense up; and when these muscles are tensed for a more extended period, it results in aches and pains in your body.

Nausea & stomach aches

Other common symptoms of academic stress in students include stomach aches and digestive issues like diarrhea or constipation. In even more extreme cases, academic stress manifests itself in the form of nausea and vomiting.

As we have already established, academic stress originates from the need to perform well academically for various reasons. The fear of failure in academic challenges can seriously strain students psychologically. Here are some of the most prevalent psychological symptoms that derive from academic stress:

Anxiety & depression

It is no news that academic stress can worsen symptoms for those that already have an anxiety disorder or depression. According to a survey conducted by the Anxiety & Depression Association of America (ADAA) , 30% of students admitted that stress had a negative impact on their academic performance .

Sleep disorder

High levels of stress can disrupt your sleep schedule or quality. Whether in quantity or quality, less sleep pushes the body to produce more stress hormones like cortisol. And while it is normal for the body to produce cortisol, this particular hormone negatively affects your memory, metabolic rate, and blood glucose regulation when at high levels. This, in turn, will put a student on a vicious cycle where academic stress negatively affects your sleep, and the lack of sleep negatively affects your academic performance.

Causes of Stress During College

Academic stress may affect students of all educational levels, one way or another: whether they are performing in front of an audience, entering an exam, or some other way. However, it is essential to note that college students have some additional stressors that set them apart from students of other levels of education. College students experience stress due to external or internal factors. Here are some of the most common stress-causing factors in college students:

There are a few reasons why some people choose not to pursue a college degree, and the cost of tuition is one of them. Many of those who enroll in college have problems making ends meet due to tuition and other college-related expenses. Simultaneously working and studying can put a strain on the mental health of many students as they try to balance personal, academic, and work life. One possible solution to this problem may be to apply for scholarships, grants, or even loans.

One of the main challenges for many college students is actually making time for themselves or socializing with others. This is especially difficult when they need to work to be able to afford college. Lack of quality time with friends or absence of a social life altogether has a negative effect on a student’s mental health as there is virtually no time to “recharge.”

Think about this: One day, you are a carefree 17-year-old, eating home-cooked meals every day and having the best time of your life in high school. A few months later, you are legally an adult, getting your first job and probably moving thousands of miles away from everything you have ever known to go to college. Even the mere thought of such a transition is enough to stress you out. College students are now far away from their families and responsible for everything that concerns their own lives.

The transition from high school to college can be tough on many students for various reasons. One of the main stressors for college students is the coursework. Students usually struggle to meet deadlines or handle the increased workload that comes with enrolling in college.

Ending the Stigma

The best thing to do in order to help students deal with academic stress is to end the stigma. This can be done by spreading awareness of the effects of academic stress on students’ mental, physical, and emotional health. Only by continually and persistently addressing this issue and educating each other can we overcome or at least learn how to manage academic stress.

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If you or someone you know are experiencing academic stress and its adverse effects on your mental and physical health and your academic performance, it is time to take action . Learning what to do to prevent becoming stressed due to academic workload or even how to manage your academic stress is extremely important for many reasons we have already discussed. Here are some tips on how to overcome academic stress when in college:

Maintain a healthy diet

A healthy diet is a well-balanced diet that includes vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and a regular eating schedule and daily exercise. While maintaining a healthy diet should be a priority for everyone, a healthy diet can also help with overcoming academic stress. Eating healthy will keep your blood pressure and glucose stable, both of which may fluctuate when a person is in a stressful situation. While many students make it a habit of drinking caffeinated drinks to stay focused on their studies, it is best to opt for water or milk. This is because caffeinated drinks raise cortisol levels in the body, similar to what stress does.

Remain physically active

Being physically active does not mean you need to be all closed up in a gym sweating away. Any sport or physical activity counts as exercise as long as it increases your heart rate. When exercising or taking part in physical activity, your body releases hormones (endorphins) that, among other benefits, reduce stress.

Make sure you spend time outdoors

Sometimes just being in a room by yourself you will associate with stress and anxiety and hence stress out. College students can also deal with academic stress by spending time outdoors. Leaving your dorm room or library and simply going outside for a walk can do wonders for your focus. Being surrounded by nature and greenery significantly reduces your cortisol levels.

The change in workload is one of the leading causes of academic stress in college students. By learning how to manage your time better, you make sure to always meet your deadlines. By avoiding procrastination, you spread out the workload, so you don’t have to worry about working under pressure when the deadlines approach.

Seeking Medical Support

While totally manageable for a lot of people, academic stress can have powerful adverse effects on others. Some of the negative effects of academic stress may be too exhausting to deal with on your own. That is why it is always essential to know places to seek help if needed:

Lately, there has been an increase in awareness surrounding mental health issues, including academic stress. That is why many institutions offer on-campus health services for their students. You can learn more about these services by visiting your college’s website.

If you feel that on-campus mental health services won’t do for you personally, you can always seek help in off-campus centers. Another great source that offers support is the hotlines available 24/7. Check the number for suicide prevention lifelines to consult with specialists on anything you might be dealing with, including anxiety, depression, stress, etc. You can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 .

Though there has been some progress in awareness regarding mental health, specifically the effects of stress on mental and physical health, there is still so much to do. There are a few steps students can take to better deal with academic pressure, like eating healthy, exercising, managing their time better, consulting with loved ones and specialists, etc. As academic stress can have serious negative effects on one’s health, everyone should take it seriously and work towards overcoming it the best they can.

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Stress and Student Success

By  Karen Costa

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I’ve spent a decade teaching college success strategies to mostly nontraditional first-year students. At times, I would stare at my course roster, hoping that an answer to the success riddle would appear. “Why do you leave?” I’d ask. “What else can I do to help you?” While I use countless teaching strategies in my courses, I’ve been tracking something even more fundamental: a unified field theory for student success in higher education.

An insight from John Medina’s Brain Rules was a bread crumb on this search -- one that has led me to conclude that stress is the underlying reason for the majority of student withdrawal: “Stressed brains don’t learn the same way,” Medina argues. In addition to the numerous physical consequences of stress (heart attack, stroke, poor immune response, etc.), chronic stress also negatively impacts student learning. Years of anecdotal educational experiences flashed before me when I first read this rule: a parade of students’ faces, at once ambitious and discouraged.

I would argue that higher education is now serving more students with more stress than at any prior point in history, yet we have done little to educate ourselves about the strategies that brain science knows can help students better manage their stress, induce relaxation and consequently improve their learning experiences. As students despair and ultimately withdraw, we are sitting, unknowingly, on a silver bullet.

What Science Knows vs. What Education Does

I recently asked a friend of mine who works with teachers for her thoughts on stress and learning. “Well, I think some stress is good for learning,” she said, hesitant. She’s right. Akin to Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development , there is a sweet spot for stress and learning. A little for a short time is actually good. Too much for too long is catastrophic. “What about the teachers you work with?” I asked. “Are they taught to understand how stress impacts learning?” She answered with only a smirk, another victim of the disconnect between what science knows and what education does.

What science knows about stress and learning is this: there is a tipping point where normal stress, an inevitable part of the human condition, transforms from ally to enemy. Medina explains that in brain science this concept is called the “allostatic load,” or the point at which stress become toxic. The portions of the brain that are responsible for memory, planning, organization and learning begin to fail. At a biological level, they cannot function -- despite anyone’s best intentions. If learning is a fistfight, students who’ve breached their allostatic load are fighting with both hands tied behind their back. So are their professors.

What education does a great job at is championing the value of active learning strategies, things like problem-based learning, flipped learning, collaborative learning -- right-sounding terms that are met with a combination of fatigue and disdain by many war-weary professors. There’s tremendous support for the value of active learning, but for many of our students, stress stands as a massive barrier in its path.

If what science knows and what education does were to meet, stress management would become part of the fundamental fabric of our learning institutions, allowing active learning to meet its intended targets.

Becoming (Para)Sympathetic Educators

With the move from elite, to mass, to what is now arguably universal access to higher education, it’s worthwhile to remember that the students we now serve are not shielded by privilege from the stresses of life. I once administered a life-change stress index to my class of first-year students, most of them first-generation college students. Their scores were off the charts: far higher than the amount of change and stress I was dealing with as a working mother. I stopped giving the assessment that term, feeling ill-equipped at the time to address its results.

Years later, after additional self-study in brain science and completion of a yoga teacher training program, I can define stress, I understand the anatomy and physiology of it, and I am able to recommend and practice strategies to manage it. But I believe I’m in the minority among educators.

Despite how chronic stress can make us feel, as if we’re trapped in a permanently unpleasant solution, effective and often simple strategies can decrease stress. Stress operates as a function of the sympathetic nervous system, a topic covered in brilliant simplicity in Herbert Benson’s The Relaxation Response . Benson, a Boston cardiologist, “discovered” what Eastern approaches have known for millennia: that nature gave us the perfect antidote to stress -- the parasympathetic nervous system. Benson found that a series of straightforward (and secular) meditation techniques could induce what he called the relaxation response, a biological answer to stress.

Stress and Success

In my former role as a director of student success at a community college, I kept one report on my desk for handy access, a retention touchstone of sorts. “ With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them: Myths and Realities About Why So Many Students Fail to Finish College ,” a Public Agenda report for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, identified something that I was seeing on a daily basis as I worked to help students persist and graduate: a pervasive sense of overwhelm. The study concluded that, “The No. 1 reason students give for leaving school is the fact that they had to work and go to school at the same time and, despite their best efforts, the stress of trying to do both eventually took its toll.”

Two recent and popular theories of student success, Angela Duckworth’s grit theory and Carol Dweck’s mind-set theory, further coalesce around the idea that stress sits at the core of persistence decisions. Grit theory argues that some students better manage the trials and travails of life; they’re grittier by nature. Duckworth calls for us to teach students to build their grit muscles. Isn’t building grit just a sound-bite-friendlier term for stress management?

One of Medina’s criteria for defining stress is that it must include a sense that control over one’s situation has been lost. Dweck’s mind-set theory suggests that many students have a fixed mind-set, believing that their abilities and circumstances are set in stone, or out of their control. Teaching students to view their minds, abilities and, yes, their stress levels as malleable can empower students and increase success. Wouldn’t providing stress-management instruction to students and teachers help to further develop this growth mind-set?

The Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education has been exploring this and other questions about mindfulness in education since 1997. As interest in mindfulness practices in higher education grows, some recent studies are pointing to the possibility that meditation and other contemplative practices can improve student success. This thesis is confirmed by the work of stress expert and psychologist Stuart Shanker . In his book Self-Reg , failure to manage time and the existence of other executive function challenges are not character flaws. Rather, these are symptoms of students who are caught in vicious cycle of stress. By teaching people to first self-regulate their stress, Shanker and his team have then witnessed improvements in the ability to focus, plan and delay gratification.

The Case for Care

Medina discusses the negative impact of high-stress work and home environments on learning. What about high-stress campuses and communities? In homes where parents yell and argue, children suffer. Like sponges, they absorb the stress around them, stress hormones are released in response and the brain cells that learn, remember and plan are paralyzed. It’s not a stretch to wonder if campuses where tensions abound have the same effect on student learning. If so, collegiality and communication take on an additional layer of import. Is your campus community built on a culture of care, not only for our students, but for our fellow faculty and staff?

Today, we work and live in a world where if you aren’t talking about racism, sexual assault, the challenges faced by returning veterans and the like, you aren’t taking stress and wellness seriously. Genuine institutional engagement in social justice is not only about addressing the scourge of structural oppression, it’s smart stress management and sound education.

While there are many ways an institution could broach the question of whether they exhibit a culture of care, consider the following as one helpful “care index” a campus could use to self-evaluate: compare the number of marketing professionals you employ to the number of mental-health professionals. If the first number outweighs the second, it’s time for an institutional gut check.

The Tipping Point

As an industry, higher education has approached its own tipping point, a moment in time when our collective allostatic load is nearly overflowing. The question is, will we apply the solutions at our disposal before the load is breached? Stress-management strategies based in sound brain science are one of our best hopes for improving student, faculty and institutional success.

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11 healthy ways to handle life’s stressors

When stress becomes unmanageable, try these evidence-based tools to tackle it in healthy ways

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Stressful experiences are a normal part of life, and the stress response is a survival mechanism that primes us to respond to threats. Some stress is positive: Imagine standing in front of a crowd to give a speech and hitting it out of the park. Stressful? Certainly. But also challenging and satisfying.

But when a stressor is negative and can’t be fought off or avoided—such as layoffs at work or a loved one’s medical crisis—or when the experience of stress becomes chronic , our biological responses to stress can impair our physical and mental health.

Fortunately, there are many evidence-based tools to help combat the negative effects of stress in healthy ways. They recommend that you:

• Try to eliminate the stressors : Whether or not you experience an intolerable level of psychological stress depends on the intensity of the situation and also the person experiencing it. How you perceive and think about a stressor can also make a big impact on how you respond. It’s not always possible to escape a stressful situation or avoid a problem, but you can try to reduce the stress you are feeling. Evaluate whether you can change the situation that is causing you stress, perhaps by dropping some responsibility, relaxing your standards, or asking for help.
• Cultivate social support : Strong social support can improve resilience to stress . Reach out strategically. Some friends or family members may be good at listening and sympathizing. Others might excel at practical help, like bringing over a home-cooked meal or covering an hour of child care. Giving support can also increase positive emotions and decrease negative emotions. Just make sure your relationships stay in balance. A friend who requires support but never gives it may increase your stress level. [ Related : The science of why friendships keep us healthy ]
• Seek good nutrition : When confronted with a stressor, the central nervous system releases adrenaline and cortisol, which affects the digestive tract among other physiological changes. Acute stress can kill the appetite, but the release of the hormone cortisol during chronic stress can cause fat and sugar cravings. Research also suggests that high cortisol combined with high sugar consumption may prompt the deposition of fat around our internal organs —visceral fat that is associated with cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. A diet high in a variety of nutrients can both protect health and provide more physical energy to deal with challenges. No need to go vegan or swear off cookies—just aim to consume a rainbow of fruits and vegetables as part of your daily diet. Avoid using substances such as alcohol to dampen the stress response since substances do not solve the root of the problem and can have serious health effects. [ Related : That salad isn’t just good for your nutrition—it may help stave off depression ]
• Relax your muscles : Because stress causes muscles to tense, being stressed out can create tension headaches, backaches, and general fatigue. Combat stress and these symptoms with stretches, massage, or warm baths. Or try progressive muscle relaxation , a method that has been shown to reduce anxiety and improve overall mental health. To practice progressive muscle relaxation, get in a comfortable position and choose a muscle group, like your lower leg muscles (most practitioners recommend starting with the lower body and working your way up). Inhale and contract the muscles for five to 10 seconds, then exhale and release the muscles suddenly. Relax for 10 or more seconds and then move on to the next muscle group. Another option is passive progressive muscle relaxation. This technique is similar to progressive muscle relaxation but skips the tensing step. Instead, simply picture each muscle group one at a time and focus on relaxing that portion of the body.

• Meditate : A strong body of research shows that mindful meditation can reduce psychological stress and anxiety—even short-term mindfulness meditation programs work . To get started, set aside five minutes in a quiet place to sit and breathe. Focus on the present moment; if stray thoughts intrude, acknowledge them and then let them go. Don’t judge yourself for any mental wavering. Gently refocus and bring the attention back to the present moment.
• Protect your sleep : Daytime stress affects nighttime sleep. Making matters worse, losing shuteye can affect both cognition and mood. How to sleep better? Try to have a consistent sleep routine that allows time to wind down before lights out. Meditation and relaxation can help with insomnia. Also, avoid caffeine and alcohol in the late afternoon and evening. Put down your screens, as blue light can suppress the sleepy hormone melatonin (and checking social media may ramp up your emotions.) Finally, move your body during the day: A large body of research suggests that physical activity can improve sleep , especially for middle-aged and older adults. [ Related : APA’s health advisory on social media use in children and teens ]
• Get physical : Brisk movement can not only improve sleep, it can directly combat stress. In one study, working adults who participated in moderate physical activity had half the perceived stress as working adults who did not participate. Physical activity may also cancel out some of the negative effects of stress , including the impact of stress on the immune system. Adding physical activity needn’t be expensive or complex: A brisk 30-minute walk or a dance session in the living room can do the trick. [ Related : Want to boost your mental health? Take a walk ]
• Take a moment in nature : Studies conducted in multiple countries have found that green space improves mood . Even nature videos can speed the recovery from stress compared with videos of urban scenes. Taking a moment to notice nature—even in the form of a bustling city park—can refocus and calm your mind.
• Keep your pleasurable activities : When life gets overwhelming, people often drop their leisure activities first. But cutting yourself off from pleasure can be counterproductive. Even when time is tight, look for opportunities to do something for yourself, whether that means reading a novel, singing along to your favorite tunes, or streaming your favorite comedy on Netflix. Humor and laughter can benefit both mental and physical health.
• Reframe your thinking : One of the most research-supported treatments for stress and anxiety is cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT. At the root of this therapy approach is the understanding that our thoughts influence our emotions, which in turn influence our behaviors. Reframing your thoughts around a stressor can help manage your emotions, reducing feelings of stress . Some tips: If you feel yourself spiraling into imagining worst-case scenarios, stop and put your mind elsewhere. Set realistic expectations for yourself. Strive for acceptance of situations outside of your control.
• Seek help : If you feel overwhelmed and self-help isn’t helping, look for a psychologist or other mental health provider who can help you learn how to manage your stress effectively. He or she can help you identify situations or behaviors that contribute to your stress and then develop an action plan to change the stressors, change your environment, and change your responses.

Acute versus chronic stress

The experience of stress can be either acute or chronic. Acute stress usually occurs in response to a short-term stressor, like a car accident or an argument with your spouse. Acute stress can be very distressing, but it passes quickly and typically responds well to coping techniques like calming breathing or brisk physical activity.

Chronic stress occurs when stressors don’t let up. The roots of chronic stress can vary widely, from situations people can control or avoid (such as having a toxic friendship) to difficulties that are hard to escape (poverty, racism, or other discrimination). Because people respond differently to stressful circumstances, a situation that one person might find tolerable can become a source of chronic stress for another.

Chronic stress can damage both mental and physical health. Being chronically stressed may leave you feeling fatigued, sap your ability to concentrate, and cause headaches and digestive difficulties. People prone to irritable bowel syndrome often find that their symptoms spike with psychological stress . Though acute stress can heighten certain immune responses, the wear-and-tear of chronic stress is bad for the immune system . Chronic stress can also affect cardiac health, with multiple studies finding a link between chronic stress and the development of coronary artery disease .

The American Psychological Association gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Beverly Thorn, PhD, in developing this fact sheet.

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Academic Challenges — The Phenomenon of Academic Stress

The Phenomenon of Academic Stress

• Categories: Academic Challenges Stress

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Published: Aug 31, 2023

Words: 728 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Understanding academic stress, causes of academic stress, effects of academic stress, coping strategies and resilience, support systems and resources, balancing academic demands and well-being, addressing systemic factors, prevention and intervention strategies, conclusion: a call for holistic approaches to education.

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